


Yachting and Other Criminal Endeavors

by pprfaith



Series: Heist Movies Can Suck It [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Aged-Up Characters, Alternate Universe - Crime, Brief instant of someone being an idiot about Stiles and his/her pronouns, Criminal Masterminds, F/M, Found Family, Genderfluid Stiles, Genderswitching Stiles, Graphic depictions of violence - Freeform, Gruesome vicious murder, Heist, Humor, M/M, Magic, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Murder, Non-Human Stiles Stilinski, Psychopaths In Love, Sexual Humor, Team as Family, although I have no idea how that happened, just a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 09:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11711619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: In which our favorite misfits are criminals, there is a thing to be stolen, Stiles Tarzans across a room and Deucalion is, as ever, an asshole.(I have no idea how any of this happened, to be honest.)





	1. Heist

**Author's Note:**

> See summary. I seriously don't know. I thought writing a gang AU might be fun and then my internet failed and I spent two days sitting around, writing this. I do think the results are mildly entertaining, though, so here, have it? 
> 
> Concrit super appreciated, since, you know, written in a fugue state of WTF.
> 
> A clarification of the gender-related tags is at the bottom.

+

These heels are killing Stiles. 

They’re awesome little black numbers with golden soles, Louboutin’s but with more glam, and she shelled out a hell of a lot of money for them, but they are literally making her feet feel dead.

How Lydia does this 24/7, Stiles will never know. On the upside, though, she thinks the stiletto heels are probably pointy enough to kill Gross Guy if that hand of his wanders any further up her arm. It’s already pretty damn close to boob-land and two more inches and literal killer heels will happen. 

Heh.

Gross Guy thinks she’s laughing at whatever insipid joke he just made. Stiles wasn’t really listening, but she thinks it might have involved someone’s new yacht looking funny and maybe they’re compensating? Casually joking about your friends’ yachts is so last year. 

Also, now Stiles kind of wants a yacht of her own. They have enough money for a yacht, right? It’s not exactly low profile, but she really wants one. Peter without tan lines. Yum. 

Maybe they can steal one? It could be a group activity kind of thing. With cocktails. 

“So, tell me about yourself,” Gross Guy demands, finally, after five minutes of monologue, leaning in close enough to her to smell the scotch on his breath and see that he’s actually, really, no joke wearing make-up. He didn’t even notice her little excursion into fantasy land. 

Using her gropee-arm to pat him on the hand like she’s flattered or some shit, she twists free and shrugs modestly. Head down, eyes up, its textbook demure and he should know better, but she can tell he’s gobbling it up. Past a certain balance in your bank account, you apparently stop caring about people blatantly faking shit. 

(His wife has probably done it for decades, after all.)

But to keep it interesting, here, have a little truth mixed in with the bullshit. “Oh, you know, nothing special.” She shrugs. “I mean, I grew up in a small town and after high school, I kind of ran off to the big city with my best friend.” She chuckles, a little rueful, a little nostalgic, because gods above and below, he and Lydia were fucking dumbasses at the time. Too smart, too wild, too hungry for good ole’ Beacon Hills, determined to make names for themselves, to leave their mark. 

Too damaged, already.

Forgetting, in the process, that being a big fish in a small pond doesn’t translate to the ocean that is the real world. 

Those lessons were not kind to either of them, when they came, hard and fast, that first year. There were a lot of close calls, a lot of dues paid and a hell of a lot of blood on the ground by the time they left their last names and origins behind and became simply Banshee and Spark, two of the best at what they do. And what they do, well.

Stiles swallows her smirk, turns it into a self-conscious little smile instead. 

“We thought we’d be famous,” she tells the guy, in confidence, leaning in again, to reach for that same hand. Little starlet lost on the way to Hollywood. 

As. If. 

He brushes a strand of greying hair off his temple, smirks and very obviously looks her up and down. “With a face like yours, I have no doubt you’ll succeed, sweetheart.”

Oh, gag her now. 

She can practically hear Peter grinding his teeth at the asshole calling her that, even from here. Only Peter gets to call her patronizing pet names. 

“How old are you now?” He fakes interest almost as badly as his wife probably fakes orgasms, one eye in her cleavage and it might have been a serious question from someone else, but right now? From this dude? Is he seriously checking if she’s legal? Seriously?

Why not just ask for her ID? It’s an excellent fake proclaiming her to be all of twenty-two and from Idaho to boot. Learning the accent sucked ass.

She ducks her head, thinks about Peter naked and forces a blush onto her cheeks. Steps a little closer, leans in far enough to smell his cologne, body right up against his, and whispers, “Old enough to know better.”

Then she giggles cutely, pats his shoulder and pretends to see someone behind him. “Oh, my friend looks like she needs saving. Maybe I’ll see you later?”

She does, very pointedly, _not_ give him the chance to reply, stalking away as fast as her shiny, shiny murder shoes allow. 

“Jesus fucking H Christ,” she mutters as soon as she’s out of earshot, scandalizing an elderly society lady with - yep, those are real diamonds, at least thirty carats worth, distinctive setting, but modest, simple cuts, and definitely too old for the stones to be marked. Stiles’ fingers itch.

She resists. She’s already gotten Lydia the most amazing present for her birthday next week and neither Alli nor Stiles really do diamonds. They could hock them, but the days where they got out of bed for a few pretty rocks are definitely over. Go big or go home, that’s their creed these days. 

“Seriously, I always think it can’t get sleazier than fat old dudes hitting on me as a guy, but then I turn female and it’s always. Worse.”

Because outside certain places, most old perverts still shy away from groping a man, but have no such compunctions about women. The younger the better. Seriously, Stiles knows how he looks as a male and female him looks younger still. Which is the entire fucking point of him going girl tonight. But. 

So fucking gross. 

“I could rip out his heart and gift wrap it for you?” Peter offers, utterly sincere, from her earwig. 

Isaac groans before Stiles can answer. “Dude. We talked about this shit. Keep the sociopathic love affair bullshit off comms, guys.”

“Oh, please, like we weren’t all there when Alli shot that rugaru for you and the two of you-“

“Aaaaand that is enough from all the people who get to have regular sex. We are on a job and I don’t want to hear it. Stiles, access card?”

Discretely, or maybe not so much, Stiles flashes the card she took off Gross Guy at hip height, winking at the nearest little camera set in the crown moulding of the ostentatious ball room she’s in. She’s pretty sure some of the antique mirrors hung all over have actual gold-inlayed frames and the little cherub statue definitely has sapphires for eyes. Rich people. How do you even. 

(Not that Stiles and Crew don’t qualify as rich by now, but they don’t spend their money on shit like this. The most ridiculous any of them get is probably Isaac’s collection of silk scarves, which Stiles knows for a fact are regularly abused as sex toys. Which makes the expense sort of worth it. Probably.

Although; yacht. Worth thinking about.) 

“Great. Allison, Isaac?”

“We found three doors with card locks. Pretty sure two of them lead to offices, and the last one downstairs,” Alli reports dutifully, never breaking her stride where Isaac is whirling her across the dance floor. He’s in a tux, she’s in a deep scarlet gown with a slit in the wide skirt that goes almost to her hip. It’s only visible when she spins fast enough and Stiles catches a split-second glimpse of the Beretta strapped to her thigh underneath.

That’s some Mr. and Mrs Smith shit right there. 

“We also realized that the blueprints we got are out of date. Henrikson knocked out a few walls and added a few new ones. Don’t trust it.” The warning is spoken in a serious, no-nonsense tone because they all know how much it sucks to get cornered in a dead end that used to be an escape route. Things get ugly when they get cornered and their employer specified no bloodshed. 

Stiles hates bleeding heart bad guys.  
If you’re going to fuck shit up, at least be honest about it. 

“So where is the thing?” Stiles grumps, trying to alleviate some off the pressure on her ankles by wiggling her feet in her shoes. “I hate it when the intel is spotty.”

Because they know that the artifact they’re after is in this house (to which they, apparently, have no accurate plans), protected by several safety measures, among them, a card lock. Gross Guy? Just so happens to be the host of this illustrious little shindig, and the owner of the thing they’re aiming to make off with. 

Three options to check off is too hot even for them. Especially now. They need to narrow it down. Peter, apparently thinking along the same lines, asks, “Does he seem like the type to display or to hide away the highly dangerous magical artifact he bought on the black market?”

Stiles grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, ducks behind a group of men discussing business and then inserts herself into the fringes of a group of socialites, occasionally nodding to look like she’s with them. Behind the cover of her glass, she mutters, “From our little grope fest back there? Display.”

“From the security measures I’ve been hacking all damn week?” Lydia counters, sounding pissed. But then, there’s caviar and elderly men with heart conditions to be had and she’s stuck on tech duty. “Hide.”

Peter sighs. “Fantastic. Ladies? Your decision, you’re on site.”

“Why don’t I get a say?” Isaac grumps.

Alli makes a consoling noise, “Because you’re the muscle, honey. And the eye candy. That’s a very important job, too.”

“Fuck you.”

“Not on the job,” Alli counters and doesn’t even blush at that filthy, filthy lie. Stiles can tell. She’s watching them ham it up to smooth jazz over by the band.

She can’t resist a little dig, “Rome, anyone?”

Across the room, Allison flashes a quick and dirty finger at Stiles, hidden under Isaac’s arm. “You do not get to talk. Absolutely not. No.”

“And we’re back at the sex. Shut up, or I’m dropping your asses and calling the cops on you myself.”

Maybe, Stiles considers, he should trade that state of the art computer system he got his bff for a box of sex toys. It’d help with her mood, at least. After she gets done murdering him, of course, so maybe not. 

Yeah. 

Definitely not. 

Stiles likes being alive. He gets good sex out of it. She, too. A toast to Peter’s bisexuality. 

“I can try a spell,” she offers, quietly. The overly-teased blonde next to her gives her a funny look, so she disengages and starts to slip between dancing couples toward where her friends are.

“Didn’t work the last five times,” Peter reminds, because he’s their resident pessimist. Stiles had a mug made and everything. It has pink glitter on it and Peter pretends to hate it but always uses it. 

“Wasn’t this close the last five times. Isaac, ruin my dress.”

“Gross, Stiles,” he complains, but comes out of a spin too fast, hand flying, and knocks Stiles’ glass right into her chest, bubbly going everywhere, glass hitting the floor in a shower of shards. Around them, a circle of empty space opens up in seconds.

“Goddamn it!” She snarls, wiping at her green silk dress ineffectively, spluttering and glaring at Isaac. She takes a half step forward, hears glass crunch, steps back, looks down at her ruined dress, around for a napkin, finds nothing, dabs at it with her fingers and almost drops her curse, tries to run a nervous hand through her hair, encounters bobby pins, stops, frowns. Glares at Isaac some more.

He takes that as his cue. “Watch where you’re going, lady!”

“I wasn’t doing anything, you ass!” Stiles defends, frazzled and her voice too high, stressed. (That girl from Idaho is terribly humiliated right now.) And Isaac, a whole head taller than her in this form, steps close enough to loom.

“What did you just say?” he growls, low and threatening and people are starting to look shifty-eyed.

“Honey,” Alli cautions, tugging on his arm, inserting herself into their little drama. She shoots Stiles a sorry look and a little half shrug. “Come on, we were careless. It’s fine. Leave the poor girl alone.”

Isaac makes a show of rounding on his date, snarling in her face, angry and loud and drunk. He weaves a little. It’s a perfect sell as he tells Alli to play with the little girl if she’s so fond of her, completely irrational and out of the blue, and stalks off toward the open bar, all eyes on him. 

Around them, everyone’s riveted, watching him for more wickedly naughty entertainment, like they don’t have cable at home. Vultures. Still, the act isn’t over, yet.

Allison, in a show of kindness, takes Stiles’ shoulder and, gently murmuring, “You could have given us more than two seconds to prepare, Stiles, was that necessary?” leads to other woman toward the restrooms. 

“Yes,” Stiles whispers back, pretending to dig through her clutch for tissues as she steers Alli gently to the left, toward another hallway. Incidentally, where the offices should be, if the plans aren’t utterly fucked up. Across the room, Isaac has progressed to yelling about his cheap bitch of a wife to anyone who will listen. 

Almost no-one is watching the girls, and the few who are, look completely understanding about them wanting to be somewhere private. 

Oh look, ma, a scandal.

Lydia sighs. “Subtle,” she decrees.

“I didn’t set anything on fire this time,” Stiles defends.

“And we’re very proud,” Alli consoles, patting her on the arm, fondly, and then turning them into a sharp right, unerringly finding another bathroom, this one populated with various toiletries, and obviously not meant to be used by party guests. Excellent. 

Stiles kicks the fluffy white rug (seriously, who has white rugs? In a bathroom?) to one side and hitches her dress high enough to sit cross-legged on the cool tiles. Allison turns on the faucet by the sink to a low trickle and positions herself to block the door if anyone tries to enter. Back to the door, she picks up some sort of lotion in an actual crystal jar, and makes a face. 

The Argent heir didn’t exactly grow up poor, but this shit is just… outlandish. Ridiculous doesn’t even cover it. 

“Anyone feel like slumming it at Burger King once this is done with?”

The dark-haired woman shoots her a knowing grin as she quickly swipes the jar against her dress to erase finger prints and then puts it back down. 

Stiles, meanwhile, has dug a photograph of the item in question, a little bowl, a lighter and a ready-made mix of herbs in a suspicious looking baggie out of her purse. Bless those things. He never could have fit any of that into a tux. 

Herbs into the bowl, bowl onto the floor, picture in hand. She lights up the herbs and waits until the first flash of heat has passed before placing the photograph on the bowl, carefully, to keep it from singing. Eyes closing, she murmurs the spell, tongue smooth over jagged syllables of a long forgotten language that even Lydia has never gotten quite right. 

(Sometimes, late at night, Stiles is almost convinced he remembers lullabies sung in that language.)

She repeats the spell three times while Allison watches and then opens her eyes just in time to yank the photograph out of the way as the ashes burst into flames and the bowl, made of tin, starts to melt to slag with little hissing bubbles. 

Alli chokes on a cough and finds the switch that turns on the fan because it _stinks_.

Stiles pouts because, damn it, she needs to get that under control. Shit randomly catching on fire got old about three years ago. 

Lydia, guessing what’s happening just from the ambient noises, sighs. “Remember to deactivate any smoke detectors, please?”

Stiles checks the ceiling, but since there’s a marble ashtray by the claw-foot bathtub and actual fucking cigars lined up on the counter, she’s pretty sure that’s an x-nay on the tector-de. 

She waits until the bowl is just a sad little blob of metal, then holds her hand out, palm down, concentrating on the heat still emanating from it. It dies down rapidly, leaving the tin, solid once more, melted to the floor. 

Rolling to her feet and making a shoddy attempt at smoothing her dress back down, she kicks the rug back into place, neatly covering the relatively flat evidence of her magical misdeeds. 

“Alliteration, nice,” she mutters to herself as Alli huffs and starts slapping her skirts back into shape. Stiles raises her arms, helpless against her friend, and instead flips over the photograph and – 

“Hallelujah, I am da man, yes!” she hisses, because sixth time is apparently the charm. 

“I take it it worked?” Peter asks, drolly.

“Yesssssss!”

“Well, good to know I wasn’t just escorted off the premises for nothing,” Isaac snarks. “Peter, I’m coming around the back to join you. Try not to eviscerate me this time?”

“Once,” their resident grumpy-wolf gripes, “You claw someone up on accident _once_.” He pauses, then asks, very seriously, “You overacted again, didn’t you?”

“Twice. And that one time I almost lost a hand. Also, no, I didn’t.” From the petulance in his voice he absolutely did. There’s a reason they use Isaac for eye candy and muscle, not the actual con work.

“Baby,” Peter mocks, the sound coming through the comms in stereo as Isaac apparently finds his hiding spot behind the garage in a convenient little blind spot, and settles down next to him. The earwigs get funny when you’re too close, at least until Lydia, in her all-seeing nerd lair, manually regulates the feedback. Stiles makes a mental note to get back on that problem with her when they have a little downtime. 

After this job. They all deserve a break. They’ve been on this one for almost a month, casing and planning, and that’s on top of two other jobs, back to back, before that. 

All that illegally made money needs to be spent, after all.  
(Yacht. Yacht. Yacht.)

“Can we get back to my spell and how awesome I am, now?” she demands, showing the back of the photograph to Allison. On it, the smoke burnt a neat map of their immediate surroundings (accurate map, yay), including a tiny little x where, presumably, the spot is. 

Unfortunately, the x isn’t close to them at all. 

“Basement,” she summarizes what they’re seeing, a bit miffed. 

“We’ll need to re-enter the ball room and get out the other side,” Alli complains. 

“Open hallway?”

“Locked door, no security.”

Stiles sighs, because of course. They’re professionals, so Isaac and Allison relocked the door after scouting the hallway beyond it and finding the basement access with the card lock. 

She nudges the other woman with her elbow. “You missing your drunk husband, yet?” she asks.

That earns her an eye roll and a nod. They spend another few minutes patting at Stiles’ ruined dress with a towel, bemoaning the fact that it’s a goner. Silk. Might as well throw it out. 

Times like these, Stiles regrets that a single woman her age is far less conspicuous that a single man would be. If she were a he, then the shirt could be dry cleaned and everything would be fine. But at the rate this is going, the champagne will have set too deeply into the silk by the time they’re done here. 

(And a curse on Lydia for teaching Stiles things like that. He was just fine before he knew the first thing about silk. Flannel shirts are awesome. Fight him.)

“At least you get to keep the heels,” Allison offer before slipping out of the bathroom and back toward the party. 

Stiles waits until she hears her make a ruckus about where the hell her husband is and what do they mean _he left_ , he would _never_ leave without her, would he? Oh god, what if he’s _cheating again_. 

“Oscar, for sure,” she comments as she slips into the ball room, around the edges and then right back out, the locked door giving her only a moment’s pause.

She ignores Isaac’s grumbled protest about how it’s overacting if he does it and performance art when Alli does, no fair. 

“Where is it?” she asks, instead of going for the easy target. 

“Down the hall, a left, second door on the right,” Isaac tells her, at the same time as Allison announces, “Lydia, I’m headed your way. Disarm the van?”

“You have thirty,” their tech overlord answers, before telling Stiles, “I have no cameras from here on out, Stiles, you’re on your own. Keep us in the loop.”

“At the door,” Stiles supplies, willing enough. “And the card… works like a charm. Awesome.”

She slips inside before the little LED light turns from green to red again and softly closes the door behind her without giving the room her back. In their line of work, you never know. 

It’s only stairs, though. Marble ones. Leading into the basement. The basement at her dad’s house back in BH doesn’t even have a proper floor.

“We’re doing a public service, robbing this guy,” she decides as she starts downstairs, carefully looking for any sensors or traps. According to all their research (which is code for ‘that weekend Lydia spent at his yacht club’), Gross Guy is human, but that doesn’t mean he can’t use supernatural tricks to guard his supernatural treasure. He’s a tiny little bit paranoid, is Gross Guy. Hence the wrong plans, the cameras, the card locks, the security guards and about seventeen other safety measures they had to work around tonight. The job is hella dicey and if it weren’t for the amazing payout, they would have turned it down half a dozen times over. As it is, they put their heaviest bruiser in the best spot to cover all the players, made a lot of contingency plans, and prayed a little.

Stiles consults the smoke-map a time or two, but nope, the stairs really are that long, she didn’t miss a turn-off anywhere. Still, this is way beyond ‘basement’. Any second now, kangaroos will start hopping past. “Can you still hear me?”

There’s a slight crackle, but Lydia comes through loud and clear. “I boosted the signal. How deep are you?”

“One hundred and forty-four steps,” Stiles answers, because being a little OCD is good for some things. “Exactly.”

Silence from the peanut gallery until Alli murmurs, “That’s twelve times twelve, Stiles. Be careful.”

Peter growls in that way they have all come to learn means, “I hate being the backup muscle, I’m going in there.”

Luckily, this time, there’s another werewolf handy to sit on him.

“Don’t you dare,” Isaac growls right back. “You’re going to trip all the alarms and Stiles will be stuck. Idiot.”

“If I cut out, give me two minutes, then you can charge in here, and start fucking shit up, okay, angrywolf?”

“Stiles-“

“Two minutes got it, bossman,” Isaac says, loudly, then adds, “Bosswoman. That’ll never not be weird.”

And Stiles rolls his eyes, because Isaac is the only one still hung up on this years after Stiles figured out he can do this, change into a female version of himself. He’s a spark, haven’t you heard?

Peter rolled with it, because Peter is Stiles’ favorite, and Stiles is his favorite, too, so there was never really a moment where Stiles occasionally switching plumbing was a problem for them being… them. Plus, multiple orgasms, dude. 

Alli and Lydia shrugged and dragged him out to teach him their womanly ways, and that was pretty much it, because Stiles has been friends with Lydia Diva Martin most of his life and with Allison since that one job with the wendigo in junior year and he was already one of the girls in all the ways that counted. Especially after he came out and starting hanging off Peter like a lovesick limpet. 

(Not his best days, the honeymoon phase. He was practically starry-eyed and drooling.)

But Isaac gets weird about it. Pronouns confuse him, Peter’s blasé attitude makes him uncomfortable and that one time he walked in on female Stiles naked he almost gave himself an aneurism, which is pretty amazing, considering he’s a damn werewolf. 

Stiles snaps back, because she knows Isaac doesn’t actually care, is just a little hung up on it, but fuck if it isn’t tiring, sometimes. “We should have left you where we found you.”

Which, no, not really, because they found Isaac with a pretty shitty pack in a pretty shitty situation and Allison went in for recon and came out in love three days later and that was that. Peter fondly calls Isaac the ‘stray puppy that followed them home’. He’s not wrong. 

“Fuck you.”

“You wouldn’t know what to do with me, Lahey,” she mutters, surveying the situation from the bottom step. Large circular room, five doors leading out of it, evenly spaced. The stairs take the place of a sixth. It’s all starting to look pretty ritualistic, in her humble opinion. 

And the stairs… she can feel a low hum in the air now, like a miniature lightning storm waiting to discharge. One hundred and forty-four steps, and every one of them she stepped on, every one of them charged by the motion of her feet, her weight, her energy, like a prayer wheel. 

Only with more teeth. 

Plucking her phone out of her trusty clutch, Stiles crouches, still on the stairs, and turns the flashlight function onto the floor. 

“Great. Magical burglar alarm.”

“Can you disarm it?”

She thinks about if for a moment, considering the limited tools in her bag. It’s handy, but it’s not Hermione Granger’s. In the end, she remembers the little mountain ash disk she tucked into a side pocket and nods, before remembering to verbally react. “I should be able to discharge it the same way I charged it. Then… the map says second door on the left, middle of the room. Since the thing’s supposed to be some sort of drain, it’ll be protected by something non-magical. Lyd’s, if you can walk me through it, we should be fine? Although I wouldn’t mind a little bit of plan C for my exit?”

Plan C is Plan Chaos. It involves this evening’s third distract and run. Although the other two weren’t exactly planned. They are flying by the seat of their pants and Stiles is starting to get a bad feeling about it. 

“My pleasure,” Peter prophesies while Stiles finally finds the disk, worn smooth by a couple months of keeping it in pockets, stroking fingers over it. Making it hers. Her energy. Just like the charge that built up from the stairs. And, looking at those with her light, now, she can just make out the tiny symbols carved into them. They’re obviously machine made, possibly even with a laser.

That’s cheating. Manufactured magic. Bah. 

She presses the wood against the outer ring of the alarm, careful not to touch it with her bare skin. Immediately, a spark runs up her spine, alarm-juice conducted through the wood. She pulls it in. 

And in. 

And in.

One hundred and forty four steps worth of kinetic energy, converted into magical one. 

It tingles like all her extremities have fallen asleep and even her damn teeth itch. Her earwig crackles, cackles and, finally, dies under the onslaught. 

Whoops. 

In her head, a big, flashing countdown starts at one hundred and twenty seconds. With any luck, the others will convince Peter to go for the distraction, rather than for an extraction, when the time is up, especially since it’s fairly obvious what happened. Both Lydia and Stiles have a habit of shorting out tech when they play with too much magic. 

Still.

119.

118.

Faster. 

“Come on, come on, come on.”

115.

The flood of energy turns to a trickle and – 113 – shuts off. The dimly lit symbols in the floor extinguish. The mountain ash crumbles to, well, ashes. Everything tingles.

“Motherfucking _spark_ ,” Stiles hisses, suddenly fighting to hold onto her shape as the stolen and returned energy spins through her like a hurricane in a bottle. She grits her teeth – 110 – and clenches her fists and forces it back where it belongs. 

106.

Second door on the left, no wires, no lasers, nothing, just a door. Arrogant. Fell into the muggle trap of thinking a bit of magic is already magnificent and terrible, when really, that burglar alarm was kind of pathetic. Annoying, but pathetic. Regular measures would have been more effective against most people coming after what is stored down here. 

103.

Inside, empty room, glass case on a pedestal, fucking cliché – 100 – but the tiles are… strange. Something about them… pressure plates. Goddamn. 

Stiles takes back the arrogant comment.

This is Allison’s field of expertise, not Stiles’. The pinnacle of Stiles’ acrobatic accomplishments it being able to walk in heels. She can’t trick a pressure sensitive floor. Nor can she use magic to make the thing come to her because magic fizzles out around it like static.

And teleportation really isn’t in her wheelhouse. Wings. Wings would be awesome right now. 

94.

But barring miracles… she looks around.

93.

92.

91.

90.

Drapes.

Drapes along the walls, actual, fucking _red velvet_ drapes and Stiles thanks the god of pretentious rich assholes because yesssssss. 

She leans around the doorway to grope for the nearest one, reaches, reaches, almost goes ass over teakettle because balance and heels and shitty luck, grabs it and yanks hard. 

85.

Stiles is now buried under a swatch of humungous, slightly musty cloth. Wrestling free takes way too long. 

76.

Thank god comms are out, Isaac would never let her live this down. She spits out a mouthful of velvety lint and then, well. 

Stiles and Lydia were both fourteen the first time they stole something. Their target’s name was Matt Daehler and he kept taking naughty pictures of the girls at school without their knowledge. Had taken some of Lydia, who caught him, but didn’t manage to make anyone do anything about it. It was art. Blah, blah. 

Scott had patted her shoulder and offered to beat Matt up for her. Stiles had spent the next three days plotting, culminating in him and Lydia breaking into Matt’s house, stealing his pictures and placing them in his locker in a way guaranteed to spill the next morning. They removed the worst of them (creep somehow got into the bathroom stalls), but left plenty of fodder.

Matt got expelled two days later and left town to live with a distant relative a few weeks after that. 

The first time Stiles and Lydia were confronted with the supernatural they were sixteen, and there was Matt again, with a mouthful of venom and scales crawling up his belly, hell bent on revenge. 

Hunters came crashing after him and their snooze fest of a hometown turned into the set of some second rate horror flick, there were so many bodies. And the only one who seemed to know what the fuck was going on was Deaton, the goddamn vet. 

Stiles got the bare bones from the man and then did what he always did: he fixed the damn problem. 

The first spell he ever learned was how to cast a mountain ash line. The second was how to set things on fire. The third, the third was how to make things stick to walls and ceilings because Kanima Matt liked to climb and come at them from impossible angles, too fast for them to stand a chance and even back then, Stiles was fully aware that the only reason he was still alive was that Matt wanted them afraid. 

Wanted them cowed. 

The Calaveras died. Deputies died. Innocent fucking bystanders died, until Lydia lured the kanima into an empty warehouse and Stiles kept hurling that damn spell at it until one hit, just before he collapsed from magical exhaustion. 

Matt lay there, pinned to the wall by the end of his long, terrifyingly agile tail, and he snarled and spat as they first tranqued him and then drove a knife through his skull. 

(The first time Stiles and Lydia killed, they were still sixteen.)

It’s been over a decade since then, and Stiles has gotten a hell of a lot better. 

63.

It’s the work of seconds – 57 – to cast the spell now, focusing it on the top of the torn-down drape and then lobbing it at the ceiling, halfway between the thing and the door.

Shitty plan.

55.

Deep breath.

51.

What could possibly go wrong with Tarzan-ing across a room filled with pressure plates toward a magical artifact they know basically nothing about, all while on a damn clock?

49.

Get your shit together, Stilinski.

Here goes nothing. 

And so Stiles takes a running leap at some really ugly curtains, swinging across the room, spell at the ready and – 

Misses. 

42.

“Fuck.”

A few steps further back, this time, more of a run up, and – 

40.

The spell sticks to the glass case and more or less sucks Stiles’ hand in like an industrial strength vacuum cleaner. 

35.

She manages to somehow work her second hand free and get it onto the glass while clutching the drapes with her legs and shit, maybe there’s an acrobat in her after all and all that stumbling and flailing she’s been doing all her life was just a fluke.

30.

Fire melts glass. It takes pretty high temperatures, but fire is Stiles’ bitch and there’s a hundred and forty-four steps worth of unsettled energy swimming around her gut. And really, she isn’t liquefying the glass. Just turning it sort of… gooey. She digs a hole through it with one hand, grabs the thing and pulls it out. Fuck everything else. 

18.

Then she kicks off the pedestal with all her might and goes skidding out the doorway with exactly 16 seconds to spare. Onto her feet, she is never wearing heels again, and toward the stairs. 

15.

14.

13.

12.

Her calves burn, her lungs ache and she gets to zero before she’s halfway up the stairs, tries a gasping, “Guys, distract, distract, if you can hear me, Plan C.”

No response. But also no howling berserker werewolves on the warpath, so, kudos. 

By the time she reaches the top, her legs feel like jelly and her toes are definitely bleeding. 

Not too far off, someone shouts something. 

Stiles cannot believe she actually pulled this shit off. 

She slows to a walk, brushes a hand through her flyaway hair and calmly exits the hallway into the ballroom, where the crowd is surging toward the main doors, obviously following the sound of the spectacle outside. 

She presses the thing between her belly and her purse, half-hiding it from casual view and shoves into the masses spilling onto the front lawn, where an impressive display of fireworks is going off, accompanied by a smoke bomb or two. They’re the nice ones Alli and Lyds cooked up, with the colors. They look like a neat trick right until you start coughing up a lung. 

Stiles holds her breath, applies her heels to a few insteps and hits the gravel driveway in time for a very obviously stolen sports car to skid to a halt in front of her, door opening.

“Sweetheart,” Peter offers, drolly, “would you like a ride?”

His gaze is firmly fixed on her cleavage and Stiles laughs with the insanity of actually having pulled this off, on the fly, no backup. “I don’t think this car is roomy enough for that,” she counters as she slides into the passenger seat and Peter peels out of there just as the gagging and coughing starts.

Peter accelerates off the property, his right hand unerringly finding Stiles’ knee and then moving northwards for a squeeze to her thigh and a filthy grin shared across the gear stick.

“Do you ever think that we’re all sex-crazed maniacs?” she asks, idly twining her fingers with his, tugging his hand further up. 

“It’s the adrenaline,” he explains with a shrug, easily turning the car one-handed, pulling into a dark alley, killing lights and engine. Their own car, a far less conspicuous sedan, is parked just a few feet down the road, waiting for them to make their get-away.

Peter looks at Stiles. Stiles looks at Peter. 

Then, simultaneously, they both launch forward, mouths meeting, teeth biting, tongues looking for entrance. Her hands find his neck, his goddamn criminally hot neck and his find her waist, hauling her halfway across the seats and into his lap where – 

“Ouch.”

Stiles pulls back, rubbing her head, contorted into a pretzel to avoid banging the roof again. He, banging the roof. Her humor never really evolved past sixth grade. She giggles and Peter sighs. “It appears that the car really is too small. Pity. I would have loved to fuck you in the backseat.”

In sync, both of them turn to look in the back. Which has no seats. Actually, there’s not even a back. 

“Trade?” Stiles asks, resigned to not getting to work off all that energy anytime soon. Lydia has bugs and at least one camera in the sedan and they do try not to traumatize their teammates too much.

Mostly because their revenge is terrible and Stiles can die happy without ever seeing Isaac’s skinny white ass again. Rome, man. Rome. 

They gather their things, wipe down the surfaces and pluck a long, dark brown hair off the roof of the car before locking it and dumping the keys in the glove box where they will neither be lost, nor noticeable from the outside. They can be nice, on occasion. 

Peter gets behind the wheel again, leaving Stiles in the back to change, both shape and clothes. He really can’t pull off a strapless dress in male form. His shoulders are way too broad. Once he’s wiggled into the jeans and t-shirt he stowed under the seats, he leans forward to check his face in the rear view mirror. The lipstick is mostly chewed off and the eyeliner Lydia put on him looks damn good in either form. He doesn’t put it past his bff to put him in make-up that allows for him to change bodies without looking like a clown hooker. 

Peter meets his reflection’s gaze and makes blatant come hither eyes, causing Stiles to chortle and press a kiss to the older man’s stubble. “Later,” he promises, switches shoes and finally takes a real look at the thing. 

It’s… well, there’s a reason they’ve been consistently calling it a thing. It absorbs magic, that much they know, but really, it’s just… cylindrical, except for the two nubs at either end, almost like… legs? It’s the length of his forearm, about two inches in diameter and Isaac made a crack about sex toys when he saw it. It’s also completely covered in layers and layers of runes, cuneiform and other magical symbols, spells and incantations. One end looks like it was once painted red, the other gold. 

Mostly it’s just… a weirdly shaped chunk of ancient clay and holding it in his bare hands makes Stiles feel… funny. He wraps it in the ruined dress, shoves it into the bag his clothes were in, heels going after, and then squeezes between seats to land, ass over teakettle, on the passenger side. 

Peter takes the chance to whack him on the ass and then helpfully pulls on one of his ankles until he’s mostly vertical again and manages to reach the glove box for a new earwig. 

“Hello, hello, it is I, I am amazing,” he crows, as soon as he’s back online. 

Peter cringes away from the feedback, grimacing. 

“You got it?” Lyds asks, unnecessarily, because Peter definitely informed her the moment Stiles got into the car. 

“I got it. Alli would have been jealous of my acrobatics!”

There is a pause. 

“Do you need to go to the ER?”

Stiles gapes. “I’m not sure whether to be insulted or touched. Really, Yousaac?”

They pass Lydia’s surveillance van just then and it pulls into traffic right behind them, following for a few blocks before veering off again on a different route back to their rental house. 

“We’re awesome,” Stiles comments as the van peels away, because this level of organization, of perfectly worked-out, smooth operation always makes him insanely gleeful. Lydia is a technical genius whose plans never fail, Stiles is a magical powerhouse, Allison is a terrifying martial artist and weapons’ expert with connections to the hunting community and Isaac and Peter are both horrifyingly effective weapons in their own right. All of them are resourceful, quick on their feet and _hungry_. 

And somehow all five of them have found each other and decided to stick with each other and Stiles might be biased, as their de facto leader, but they are _breathtaking_. 

With this team at his back, he feels like he could topple governments and take on the world. He never had that, before. 

He had Scott, who was with him as long as he toed the invisible line of morality Scott adhered to, and he had his dad, who loved him but didn’t fill the empty spaces. Lydia was the closest he got to this feeling, because even then, he knew she’d follow him into hell and vice versa. There is something powerful in knowing that there is nothing you could do that would scare another person off. They learned how to be criminals together and they learned how to cut their losses together and they learned how to kill together and neither of them ever flinched. 

But it wasn’t fair, on either of them, the way they depended on each other. Now, though, they have the team. Lyds has a second best friend in Alli and a fashion buddy in Isaac, And Stiles has Peter and all of them are a bit screwy and none of them flinch. 

He meets Peter’s gaze to find the older man already smiling, warm and fond and knowing, because Peter was alone, too, for so long, until Stiles was hired to kill him and instead took him home. 

“Yeah, we are.”

They pull into the garage after the van, find the others already inside. Isaac is sitting at the dining table, his tux a ruin, leftover pizza box on his lap, happily chewing. “I hate hor d’oeuvres.”

Alli pats him on the shoulder as she wanders past in her underwear, barefoot and pulling a myriad of bobby pins and – “Is that a garrote wire?” – out of her hair. 

She stops, lets Stiles see the wire and then undoes an adorable pearl button on her bra and pulls out another wire. 

“Remind me to never piss you off,” he says, with a hard gulp. She laughs, pats him, too, and continues toward the back, in search of her usual outfit of leggings and tight shirts, good for kicking ass in. 

Lyds is already back at her laptop – if she ever left it. “I’ve erased the footage from the house and I’m working on the traffic cams. Police is on the scene, but so far, they seem to think the smoke bombs were a random act of vandalism. If Henrikson has noticed his prize artifact missing, he hasn’t told them, yet.”

Won’t, they hope, since it was acquired via illegal means, but Lydia wasn’t able to find out with absolute certainty whether or not Henrikson has fake documentation good enough to insure the thing. 

Sometimes, actual paper trails, made of actual paper, are a pain in the ass. But, Stiles checks his phone for the time, it’s been an hour. Chances are good someone went to check on the crown jewels in that time, found one missing and didn’t say anything, so they should be good. 

At least when it comes to the law. 

A few more key strokes, and Lydia slaps her laptop closed. “That was sloppy work,” she chides. 

“It worked,” Isaac complains though a mouthful of pizza. 

“Sloppy.”

“We had too little intel to make an exact plan, Lyds, come on. We used what we had and we got away clean,” Stiles counters, knocking on wood because he knows better than not to. 

Peter shrugs. “I would have preferred less solo-ing on your part, sweetheart.”

“Inevitable. I’m the magic man of this crew. It had to be me.”

Lyds is decent in a pinch, but her calling is elsewhere, Isaac and Peter can’t use most magic due to being furry. It interferes with a lot of spells. It’s handy when someone slings a spell at them and it just bleeds off, less so the other way round. And Allison is amazing, but she’s a big, fat zero on the magic scale. 

Which left Stiles and his ever increasing magical repertoire for this job. 

“Using a party as an entrance strategy is always a hassle,” Alli adds, returning with her hair down and actual clothes on. She perches on the table next to Lydia and steals some cold pizza, giving Isaac a quick peck as payment. “The crowd is as much a hindrance as it is a cover. I think it went okay. When’s the drop off?”

Stiles groans. “Dawn. Because our employer is a dramatic fart.”

“Great,” the huntress announces. “Bedtime.”

With that she takes away Isaac’s pizza, grabs the ends of his undone bow tie and hauls him to his feet. 

“Try to get some sleep!” Lydia hollers after them. 

“No promises!”

“Sex crazed,” Stiles reiterates, and then shrugs and latches onto Peter, because Alli has the best ideas. 

Lydia just sighs. 

+

+


	2. Rescue

+

Dawn sucks donkey balls. Especially for a bunch of professional criminals.

Stiles barely manages to keep his eyes open, Peter growls a lot and Lydia clutches her travel mug of coffee with a quiet, ferocious resolve. Allison and Isaac flat out refused to be alive, much less awake at this time of day. 

Still. Three people for a drop? Should be more than enough. 

Famous last words. 

Deucalion is already waiting when they get to the meeting point, an abandoned pier down by the waterfront. It’s appropriately derelict for illegal transactions. And zombie movies, probably, but Stiles doesn’t judge. 

He just wants his twelve million and a comfy bed to snuggle into.

With his snugglewolf.

Possibly on the Bahamas. 

Vacation. 

They’ve earned it. 

Lydia steps up next to Stiles, the case with the thing in hand, while Peter hangs back by the car, keeping an eye on their surroundings. Wouldn’t be the first time some greedy ass tried to shortchange them. 

And by ‘shortchange’ Stiles means ‘kill them and take the goods’. 

He gives the old wolf his best business smile and offers the standard, “You show us the money, we show you the goods.”

Deucalion sighs. “Straight to business, is it? Such a shame.”

He adds a leer, because he’s a cliché. Stiles smiles blandly until the alpha motions one of his people forward. “Kali, the money?”

She pulls a phone out of the pocket of her severe and expensive pantsuit and starts tapping away with too pointy nails. She matches Duke’s business suit and pretentious walking stick. Seriously, Stiles is so fed up with rich people right now. 

On Deucalion’s other side, Ennis, his man for the down and dirty, stands in jeans and a t-shirt. It almost makes Stiles like him. 

“Done,” Kali finally announces, showing her alpha the screen. 

Lyds passes over the suitcase to Stiles and checks her own phone. “Done,” she confirms after a few taps.

“Excellent. My artifact, please?”

Stiles takes a few steps forward and passes it to Ennis, who takes the case, spins it around and presents it to the boss. Good little henchman. 

Deucalion opens it, takes a long look and then strokes a reverent hand over the clay blob sex toy before nodding. Ennis closes the case.

“Excellent,” the alpha repeats, for the second time. Then he suddenly leans to the side and calls, “Mr. Hale!”

Peter snaps to attention. 

“My condolences on the loss of your pack. I knew your sister, even if only in passing. Such a shame that there’s only a single Hale left.” He pauses, smirks suddenly, all teeth and Stiles get a very bad feeling a split second too late. “Such a shame that there’ll be none left now.”

The shot cracks out of nowhere and Peter goes down like a sack of bricks. Lydia screams even as she dives for nearby cover. Stiles twists his wrists, pulling up firefirefire, even as he crouches and spins to _rip these fuckers apart_ , sparks dancing along his forearms, ready to set anything and anyone ablaze. If Peter’s dead… if Peter’s dead – 

If - 

Deucalion doesn’t so much as blink at the display. “He’s alive,” he says, like he didn’t just have the most important person in the universe shot, like Stiles’ lover, like _Peter_ isn’t bleeding out, wolfsbane, has to be, and Stiles can’t hear him, can’t see him, doesn’t know if it’s a lie or not, but he has to believe it because if Peter is dead – 

“What do you want?” he growls, voice deep and low and full of hate. 

“Why, I want you, Mr. Stilinski. You come with me, no protests, no struggle, and we’ll give your lovely banshee a bullet from the gun that shot the Hale mutt. She can heal him. But only if you come quietly.” 

Stiles’ heart stops and he knows Lydia’s must, too, because Duke shouldn’t know that name. They spent a decade burying their last names and family histories, making themselves into the Spark and the Banshee, Lydia and Stiles, no last names. Like Sting. No connections. Isaac and Peter have no-one left alive to care about and Stiles would like to see the poor fool who thinks he can go up against the Argent clan, but Lydia and Stiles come from nice, normal families. Hell, his dad’s a cop. They buried their pasts as deeply as they possibly could so no-one could use them and the people in them and now Duke knows Stiles’ full name. 

Fuck. 

Fuckity fucking fuck. 

“Stiles,” Lydia hisses from her hiding place, even as Stiles straightens, fire dropping away. “Stiles don’t – “

He shoots her a quick grin, lopsided, the kind he knows she hates because she says he looks too old when he smiles like that. They know his name. They know who to shoot to hurt him. They know.

“It’s Peter,” he says simply, because that’s all he can say. It’s Peter. Before Peter, Stiles was a functional human being. He had friends, he had a highly illegal and deadly career and he laughed, but he wasn’t… he was lost. 

Born with a broken heart, one of his exes once said, because Stiles has always, always been a little left of center, a little fucked-up and that’s fine, that’s perfectly alright. It’s what makes him so successful at what he does. And that was okay, that was perfectly alright and he always hoped he’d one day be lucky enough to find someone who didn’t mind that. Who could live with his flaws, the same way Lyds and Alli and Isaac can. 

But then there was Peter, lost and angry and trying to avenge his pack and Stiles was supposed to set him on fire, but for some reason didn’t. He didn’t and Peter makes him better. Not because he makes Stiles _want_ to be better, not because he demands it, but just because he’s there. 

His mere presence in Stiles’ life, by his side, in his bed, is like a spell. It makes Stiles more. And Stiles knows, he knows he does the same for Peter, knows that neither of them feels right anymore, without the other. They slot in together like they were always meant to be and Stiles can’t imagine – doesn’t want to imagine – 

He raises both his hands, palms out. Empty.

“Bullet, then I’ll come with you.”

Kali makes to protest, but her alpha cuts her off with a raised hand. 

“Quietly,” Duke demands, and Stiles cocks his head to one side and imagines melting the wolf’s face off. He could do it. He melted _glass_ less than eight hours ago. 

“As a dormouse,” he confirms and lets some of what he’s thinking bleed into his expression. Deucalion just smiles blandly back, like Stiles is somehow adorable. 

At his go ahead, Ennis starts edging around Stiles, slow, too slow, too damn slow. Lydia curses under her breath, her voice still shrill from screaming and Stiles is dying to ask who she screamed for, if it was Peter, if Peter is dead – but he knows even if he is, Lydia won’t tell him. 

She’ll lie rather than tell him, because she knows Stiles better than anyone in the world and she knows what he’ll do if his lover is gone. 

She straightens, hands as far away from the gun at her waistband as she can make them, careful, careful. It’s that care that lets Stiles hope. Lets him believe. 

Ennis stops an arms’ length from her and digs a rifle bullet out of his pocket. Lydia takes it, sniffs it. 

“This is the right one?” she demands.

Deucalion nods and Stiles is going to burn that smirk off of his face. Right down to the bone. Maybe deeper. 

She turns to Stiles.

“Go,” he tells her. “Go.”

She darts in, viper quick, presses a hand to his heart and a kiss to his cheek. 

“We’ll come for you,” she promises, sends one last, hateful look at Duke, and then runs. 

“They can try,” the alpha jeers, amused, and motions for Ennis again. 

A moment later, pain explodes against Stiles’ temple and the world goes black. 

+

Never again are they going to agree to a rendezvous by the water, Stiles decides as he wakes, already nauseous from a lovely combination of concussion and sea sickness. His stomach rolls in time with the boat he’s on and he can already taste the bile at the back of his throat. 

The water is too easy a getaway. 

God, he’s gonna barf. 

He’ll make it a rule. Once he gets out of here and back to the others, back to Peter, he’ll make it a rule. No rendezvous by the water. Nope, no, never again. Water bad, desert good.

He fights back the nausea and tries hard to listen for anything useful. Of course, since he’s been Stilesnapped by werewolves – 

“You can stop pretending, Stiles, we can hear your heartbeat go haywire.”

(Yeah, he never did figure out how to not do that.)

“Fuck you,” he tells the speaker, preemptively and just because he can. Then he opens his eyes.

And immediately regrets it. 

He goes slower on the second try, manages to crack one eye open without feeling like his stomach is making a decent attempt and climbing up through his windpipe. Then the second and the first thing he sees is Deucalion fucking Whatever His Last Name Is smiling that goddamn smile of his. The one Stiles is going to burn off. It makes his eyes crinkle and his lips curl just so and maybe it looks nice to random passers-by, but all Stiles can see is the condescension in it. 

He shifts on the bunk he’s lying on, finds his legs are tied together with some sturdy ropes and some really very excellent knots. There is a chain looped between his ankles, around the rope, and then attached to the wall. 

His hands are free, but he’s essentially hobbled and as long as they don’t give him the time or means to undo the rope, he’s stuck. He could burn it off, but werewolves. They’d be on him before he has enough of a spark to light a cigarette. 

And somehow, Stiles doesn’t think they’re going to be leaving him alone all that much to find another escape. Also, what’s he gonna do? Jump ship and swim back to shore? He has no idea how long he was even out, much less where they are. He’d drown for sure. 

His only option would be to kill everyone on board and take over the boat. Which he is angry enough to do, but he’s also concussed and chained up. 

But Stiles can be patient. He can be cold and he can be cruel. 

So he smiles right back at Deucalion and says nothing at all. 

Unfortunately, the man’s too good to be very unsettled by that. Should have listened to Peter’s mumblings about how the guy went ‘weird’ after his first pack was killed. But ‘weird’ alone wasn’t enough to turn down that kind of payday. ‘Homicidal, kidnapping maniac’ sure would have helped to know beforehand, though. Ah, well, hindsight. 

Instead of reacting, the asshole just picks up the thing from its case and waves it around like it’s a damn wand. “Do you know what this is, Stiles?”

“A really ancient and unsanitary rabbit?”

He doesn’t even see Kali move – didn’t see Kali before this, period – but suddenly her fist is buried in his abdomen and this time he really does barf. Right onto her power suit. 

She shrieks in disgust and backs away, cursing, eyes flashing yellow, fangs growing, claws flickering. Literally losing it over a little puke. Whoops.

Stiles spits onto the floor and laughs. 

Deucalion just shakes his head like a disappointed father before nodding toward his henchwoman. “Get changed, Kali, dear. And bring some water for our guest when you return.”

Her expression is murderous, but she goes without another word, glaring daggers at him.. Yeah. Stiles is gonna wait for that water until kingdom come, he can tell.

He gives her a cutesy little finger wave as she goes. 

“Don’t be too happy, Stiles,” comes the reprimand. “With Kali gone, there is only Ennis left to apply motivation and I’m afraid he’s not as gentle as she is.”

Gentle?

Stiles is pretty sure he can feel his fucking liver bruising. That was gentle?

“So. I repeat. Do you know what this is? Did you research it?”

The urge to spit in the man’s face is overwhelming. But Ennis is suddenly right there in his line of sight, instead of behind him where he and Kali were before (Stupid Stiles, careless), and, yeah. 

His poor liver.

“It’s an absorber.” 

“Of what?”

“What is this? Twenty questions? Magic. It absorbs magic.”

“Very good. Absorbs, and stores for later use. Quite neat, isn’t it?” He lays it on both hands like a knight presenting his sword, and hums, pleased. “It’s almost five thousand years old and the art of making something like it has been lost almost as long as its name. But I figured it out. I know what it is _for_.”

“So it’s a sex toy after all.”

It’s almost worth the punch to the kidneys just for the sour look on Duke’s face as he draws the thing into his chest, like he’s protecting it from Stiles’ bad, bad words. 

He’d laugh, if he weren’t so busy trying to breathe. 

“Let’s try this another way, then. Stiles, do you know what you are?”

It’s only a decade of living dangerous that keeps him from freezing up entirely at that question. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. FUCK.

“I’m a spark,” he says, voice as bland as he can make it. 

That earns him a patronizing chuckle. “And what is a spark? Can anyone tell you? Is there a definition? It’s such a vague term. Spark. Magical spark. You’re not a witch or a warlock. You’re not a rune master. You can’t craft your own spells. Can’t cast complicated magic. But you have such interesting innate talents, don’t you think?”

Villain monologue. Fantastic. 

Just pass him the popcorn. Or a gun.  
Duke puts the absorber down and leans forward, eager. “Did you know that, in some circles, people think you’re twins? You and your other shape? Such a perfect change, right down to your chromosomes. That’s not a spell, is it, Stiles? That’s pure willpower. It’s something uniquely _you_.”

He shrugs. “Someone once told me that a spark can do anything he puts his mind to.”

Deaton was lying and also about as helpful as wheels on a goat, but he gave Stiles a starting point when Matt was holding all the cards and killing people by the dozen. It was enough for Stiles, who’d already learned not to rely on adults by then. 

“Ah, but that’s not true, is it? I bet you’ve never cast a water based spell successfully in your life. Air, yes, fire, yes, shape change, yes. But not water. Not earth. Nothing concerning glamors, nothing too big, or too complicated.” Duke presses his hands together, fingers tapping his chin. “Did you feel the absorber? Did you touch it?”

“Look, dude, can we just cut to the chase? Tell me what you want from me, I’ll say no, you torture me a little, someone dies. Please? You keep talking and I think my ears are about to start bleeding.”

That earns him pursed lips and another disappointed look and Stiles digs it, he really does, because he’s trussed up, kidnapped and hurt and Peter, Peter, and any way he can make his kidnappers uncomfortable? Is a-okay in his book. Hell yes. So channeling is inner sixteen-year-old? He can do it aaaaaall night. Day. What time is it anyway?

Duke goes back to fondling the absorber for a moment, before abruptly pointing it at Stiles and lecturing, “This was originally made to be a defense. Back when monsters still roamed the land and humans were prey instead of predator. Not that they’re much more now, but they didn’t have illusions of superiority back then. Oh, no. They knew where they stood. Which isn’t to say they were happy with their station.”

Boring old dude lecturing in snooty English accent about long dead people. Stiles fakes a yawn. 

“And so,” Duke goes on, a bit more forceful, “they built this little gem, to absorb the powers of their predators. It takes all magic, really, but it was built for one, very specific purpose, originally. Can you guess what it is? Or do you really not know what you are?”

Stiles frowns again. “A spark? How are sparks the enemy? We’re mostly human.”

Because he learned, long ago, with his father interrogating him over the disappearance of some very delicious cookies, to never admit what hasn’t already been proven beyond a doubt. It’s a lesson that has served him well, even if not in the way his father probably intended. (But then, his dad is happily oblivious in the belief that his son is a private security consultant, putting his degree in criminalistics to proper, legal use.) 

Also, he’s still not really sure where Meandering Villain Monologue TM is actually going, so. 

“This marvel of an invention can absorb that creature’s power entirely and, as long as the creature stays alive, it continues to draw and channel that power, for the use of its wielder. In other words, you can channel another’s powers through it. Your powers, to be specific. Imagine what I could do, with all that power at the tips of my fingers. Have you found out how hot you can make a fire burn, yet? Have you measured it? Can you melt metal? Glass? Stone? Can you touch an open flame? I bet you can.”

“It tickles a little, actually,” Stiles allows, because at this point, it’s pretty obvious that yeah, cat’s outta the bag and on national television. Well. It lasted longer than he honestly expected it would, after he himself realized just why fire loves him so much. 

“You get it from your mother’s side, don’t you?”

He shrugs. His dad is human, so Mom had to be the one. And maybe, if she’d lived a little longer, she would have told him, taught him. Maybe he wouldn’t have had to learn by trial and error. 

“What gave me away?” he asks, idly curious and also because it’s about the only stalling tactic he has left.

Duke gives a pleased little quirk of his lips. “The shapeshifting. It’s not a glamor, not a trick, it’s inherent in you and there is only one species that can change their human shape like that. You see, wolves, coyotes, all of us, we’re born with two skins. But your kind, even a half breed like you, your only true skin is your animal skin. The human part is a disguise, one that you can change at will.

“In the old tales, the monsters change their face to hide from their hunters, going from male to female, young to old, white to black. Anything they want. I don’t think you’re quite that skilled, but then, you’re half human. I assume that brings with it some attachment to this form, being born into it.”

And… that’s actually a pretty disturbingly accurate description of it, because Stiles, Stiles occasionally thinks he remembers days when his mother’s hair was suddenly too long, or her eyes had the wrong color, of her jaw was just a bit… off. Remembers how she used to stand in front of the mirror every morning when his dad was still asleep and check herself over. Almost like she was making sure she still _looked right_ and the first time Stiles slipped into herself, became shorter, rounder, smoother all over, it didn’t feel wrong. It felt like slipping into new clothes, freshly washed and not yet worn into certain shapes. Perfect. 

The alpha flicks a negligent hand towards Stiles’ body, pulling him out of his memories. “It is a rather nice one, I admit.”

Oh, great. Now the megalomaniac werewolf is perving on him.

“So what do you plan to do, once you have my powers absorbed into the clay stick of destiny?” Stiles asks and watches the reference fly right over the evil guys’ heads. 

“Like I said, this world belonged to the monsters once. Now look at us, we’re hunted, scared of our own shadows, hiding, cowering in the dark. We’re pathetic, barely more than human. With this,” he waves the object in question, “I can channel your fire. With this, I can render the compounds of the large hunting families to ashes and dust. And once they’re gone, and all their lore, their weapons, their tricks with them, we can stop hiding. We can come out of the shadows once more.”

“So basically, you’re planning a genocide,” Stiles summarizes, and this time the sick feeling in his stomach has nothing to do with being punched. At least not physically. 

Deucalion is insane. Bugfuck nuts and totally delirious, if he thinks he can actually pull this off. If he thinks – and he plans to use Stiles, use his powers, to get started on this madness. Hell no. 

“I would sure like a sip of your Kool Aid, man. You’re completely lala, aren’t you? Did your parents not hug you enough, or something? Were you dropped on the head a lot?”

This time, he half expects the punch. Still hurts like fuck. 

Deucalion politely waits until he’s done wheezing before going on, “You’re not human, Stiles. Stop thinking like one. It’s us against them and you are not ‘them’.” 

“And yet, you’re planning to steal my powers and lock me up, presumably, to keep sucking down my juice.” He grimaces at his own word choice. Images. Eugh. 

“Sacrifices must be made. I searched for someone like you for so long, someone with more than fangs and claws, with actual _power_ , but most of the ancient races are long since gone. You might be the last of your kind, for all I know. Imagine my joy when I found you and not only were you perfect, but also in a position to acquire you own doom for me.”

He waves the thing again. Stiles is going to shove it down his throat and watch him choke on it. _Then_ he’ll burn his face off. 

“Lovely,” he bites out instead, and really, the cavalry can pick any second now to show up, he wouldn’t mind, especially since it sounds like the monologue is winding down and Stiles does _not_ want to find out what will happen to him if Deucalion actually switches the absorber on, somehow. Spell, probably.

No, sir. 

A pleased hum. “I quite think so, yes. Now, how would you like to – “

“Boss? Boss?” The door to the cabin bursts open and a guy Stiles’ age comes crashing in, eyes wide. “Boss you gotta come see this! They’ve got a… just come look!”

Deucalion hesitates, looks at Stiles, at Ennis, back at Stiles. Then he tucks the priceless ancient murder tool under one arm, picks up his walking stick with the other and motions for Ennis to unchain Stiles. 

“We wouldn’t want our guest to feel abandoned,” he decides, which is a nice way of saying he’s not trusting Stiles to be a good prisoner, before turning a stern look on him. “How did they find us so fast?”

Stiles shrugs. “I smell. Peter has a keen nose. It’s a thing.”

That, or the little nub of plastic and wires Lydia smuggled into the front pocket of his flannel when she kissed him goodbye. It’s a toss-up, really. 

Stiles does so adore it when his people are being clever.

Ennis punches him again and while he’s still trying to decide who to puke on now, undoes the lock on the chains and hauls him upright, which, yes, hello concussion, I’d forgotten about you. 

To Stiles’ immense satisfaction, Ennis doesn’t move his feet fast enough. It’s totally worth the second hit it earns him. 

Then they’re wiggling up a set of narrow, we-are-on-a-small-ship stairs and Stiles is abruptly reminded of the shitty joke about someone’s shitty yacht he heard last night. Ah, those were the days. No pain, no concussion, no abduction. Just boredom and old people’s wandering hands. 

Also, taking stairs while hobbled by copious amounts of bondage gear is fucking hard. 

The first thing Stiles notices, upon exiting the belly of the beast, is that it’s really fucking bright. The second is that it’s really fucking blue. Water in every direction. 

The third is the other boat, ship, whatever. Stolen, certainly. It’s a safe distance away for hand guns, but close enough to see all kinds of interesting things. Like Peter. Peter, Peter, Peter. Upright. Moving.

Stiles releases a breath he’s been holding since dawn. 

He’s alive. 

Jesus and all his fucking saints, _thank you_. 

Also, there is Allison, propped on the railing, a _rocket launcher_ over one shoulder. She waves cheerfully with her free hand and hollers a greeting. Stiles waves back, manic grin spreading on his face because he can see the shape of how this is going to go. Yes, yes, he can. 

Beside her, Isaac is holding her ammo case like a good boyfriend. 

Lydia is out of sight, probably at the wheel, and Peter is just crouched there, looking ready to leap the distance between ships and murder a few people. Gleefully. 

Stiles beams at him. 

“Give us Stiles,” Lydia’s disembodied voice suddenly booms from a speaker system on the other ship. “Or we’ll blow you up.”

It takes a moment for the guy who burst into the cabin to come running with a microphone and… huh. Either Stiles is seeing double, or there’s two of those. He checks them out. Different clothes. Twins, then. Good to know. 

Deucalion clears his throat, fumbles with mike and finally answers, “If you do that, you blow up dear Stiles, too.”

“Yeah, about that,” Stiles pipes up, wiggling away from Ennis, flailing one hand in the air like he’s in class. He almost drops flat on his face because ropes, but one of the twins catches him and puts him back on his feet. He pats the guy’s shoulder in thanks and manages to sidle up to Duke. Carefully. Very carefully. 

When it becomes clear that he’s not going to continue, Deucalion finally asks, “ _What_?”

Suddenly, he doesn’t sound quite so benign anymore. Whoops.

Stiles beams at him, waves at his team, and tells the alpha, with all his teeth on display, “I’m a motherfucking dragon, you goddamn idiot.”

And then he abruptly drops his hand and Alli, precious Disney Princess and Patron Goddess of Shit That Blows Up doesn’t even hesitate before firing. 

_Boom._

She was kind enough to not aim for them directly, but instead blows the back of the ship (what’s that called, again) out. Apparently, that’s where the fuel tanks are, though, because Stiles pretty much goes flying. He lands on something squishy and, oh, look, evil alpha werewolf, slightly singed. 

Okay, no. Slightly burning. 

Duke’s fancy suit is on fire. He’s crawling, one leg definitely shattered, trying to get to the water. Stiles gracelessly flops onto him and wraps both hands around his neck, “Oh, no, you don’t, asshole.”

He can feel his own clothes catch fire, but he melted glass with his bare hands less than a day ago, so all this does is tickle. He’s Daenerys Fucking Stormborn, assholes, and fire cannot kill a dragon. 

Under other circumstances he might have let Duke escape, but the fucker _shot Peter_ and Stiles promised to _burn his face off_.

There are shots whistling above his head as the others take out the rest of Deucalion’s pack as they try to abandon ship and Stiles just keeps holding on, tightly, clinging to his back like a murderous monkey, as the alpha struggles to get away, to put out the fire, to get to safety. He holds on and once he has a good hold with his legs (rope burns, too), he presses his palms flat against the older man’s skull and lets go. There’s still most of those one hundred and forty-four steps boxed up inside of him, along with a hefty helping of terror and rage and pain and he lets it out. All of it.

Duke stops moving and then he stops screaming. Eventually, he also stops breathing. Which might have to do with not having a mouth anymore. Gross. So gross. 

Stiles pukes, because he’s never boiled another living being before, but he doesn’t really regret it because he _shot Peter_ and wanted to _end the world_ , but he still _burned him to death_ and there are things, clinging to his hands and torso, things that were once a person, and the _smell_ and Stiles hates himself, hates and hates and hates and still feels darkly, viciously satisfied. He hates that, too. 

Fuck, what has he done?

Peter is going to hate him for this.

He rolls to his feet, kicking away the smoldering remains of the ropes at his ankles and takes a moment to balance on the burning, sinking ship, before making his way to where the absorber is wedged under some debris. 

He yanks it free, grips it with both hands and sends fire through it. It explodes under the pressure of being suddenly superheated and the shards go everywhere. They’ll rot away to nothing on the ocean floor before long. 

Taking a last look around, Kali dead in the doorway leading downstairs, one twin dead next to her, Ennis and the other twin drifting in the water, also dead, Stiles decides his work is done here. 

The ship is apparently done, too, because with a mighty groan, it abruptly lists hard and whatever was holding it up until then gives out as it starts sinking rapidly. 

“Guys!” he calls, “A little help?”

“Work, work, work,” a voice grouses behind him and Stiles spins on his heel and there is Peter, wet and pissy and blue-eyed and alive, alive, alive, and Stiles doesn’t even hesitate, just flings himself at the man, all octopus limbs, because Peter isn’t dead and Peter is here, Peter braved a _burning ship_ for him.

He keeps doing that, keeps not running screaming from Stiles, Stiles who sometimes sets things on fire in his sleep and still hasn’t really figured out what the heritage his mother left him even means, Stiles who is the embodiment of fire and just _burned someone to death_.

Peter lost his entire family to flames, to heat and smoke and agony. He still dreams of their dying screams and the taste of ashes in his mouth and he should flinch away from Stiles for that alone, but he never does. 

Never.

Fuck, but Stiles loves this man. 

“Guys? Uhm… guys? Peter! Stiles!” 

Stiles lets go of Peter long enough to send Isaac a dark look, only for the other man to wave frantically at them both. “Maybe save the making out for when you are not on a _burning ship sinking into the ocean_?!”

Right. That. 

Peter sighs, entirely too put-upon, and presses a brief, regretful kiss to Stiles’ mouth before swinging him up, bridal style and leaping into the water. The damn showoff doesn’t even use his arms to swim, just gets them across to the other boat with a few strong kicks. 

He does let Allison pull them up, though, because even Peter can’t grow wings and fly. Stiles might be able to, one day, but he’s already terrified at the prospect, so no. 

They land in a sodden, tangled heap on deck, Stiles on his back, Peter on top of him, gazes locked. Peripherally, Stiles is aware that he’s steaming and also naked, because the burnt remains of his clothes fell off in the water. 

Ask him if he cares as he wraps both arms around Peter, hauls himself up and kisses him, long and hard and filthy. Peter’s hands to go his hips, stroking up toward his ribcage and back down, one muscular thigh finds its way between Stiles’ own and – 

“Guys!” Isaac shrieks. “My eyes!”

Stiles detaches long enough to mutter, “You said we could,” and then goes right back to licking Peter’s gums.

“I did not!”

Much as he’d like to get into a playground fight with Isaac, he’s busy, so he just flips him off instead. 

Then, suddenly, a thought occurs to him. He draws back. “Wait. Did Duke actually pay us? Or did the world-ending nut job skimp us and all this shit was for free?”

Lydia’s head pops up in his field of vision long enough for a truly vicious smirk to cross her features. “Oh, he paid. Probably more than he intended. I traced the transaction back and robbed him of every cent he had.”

“Vindictive,” Stiles praises, giving up on the smoochies for the moment and lying down flat. Peter settles on top of him, face buried in his neck, low-key growling, hands bruisingly tight. Stiles has to stink of fire and death and he doesn’t seem to care at all.

“Tactical,” Lydia counters. “It’s hard to move when you have no money.” She pauses. “But mostly vindictive.”

“What did they even want with you?” Alli asks, plopping down next to the PeterandStiles pile, cross-legged. 

Stiles waves a hand. “Oh, you know, channel my awesome to destroy the world as we know it.” He grins, then abruptly goes serious, “He knew way too much, about me, about what I am, where I’m from. We have a leak, somewhere.”

Which probably means they’re going back to Beacon Hills, and this time, it won’t just be Stiles and Lydia, playing dutiful children. This time is will be the entire gang, looking for a rat. It’s going to be chaos. 

“We’ll deal with it,” Lydia promises, letting Alli lean against her shins. 

Next to her, Isaac sighs. “Betcha fifty bucks someone’s going to burn down a building,” he grumps, but that’s just his way of saying he’s in and Stiles….

Stiles just burnt another human being to death. He smelled it and he felt it and he saw it and he _made it happen_. He… he’s going to have nightmares about that. So is Peter, probably, because triggers are a bitch. And no amount of justification is going to fix that. 

Stiles just burnt someone to death, his and Lydia’s covers are blown wide open and he’s naked, slightly singed and really, really concussed, still. 

But that’s alright. 

He’s got his friends, his family. They’ll deal. They’ll be – 

“Oh, hey, I just remembered, did you actually steal a yacht for me? Do we have a yacht now? Are there cocktails?”

+

+

**Author's Note:**

> To clarify the genderfluid and related tags: Stiles magically changes gender and refers to himself as herself when he does. Isaac is a dick, as usual, and isn't quite comfortable with that, referring to it as 'weird', without real malice behind it. 
> 
> Also, come see me at my tumblr - wordsformurder.


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